Aave DAO pushes back against protocol interface fees no longer flowing to the treasury.
An internal debate within Aave DAO has raised questions about who controls the protocol’s interface and who captures the associated economic benefits. Earlier this month, Aave Labs integrated CoWSwap into the app.aave.com interface, replacing Paraswap as the routing solution for collateral swaps. Delegates noted that this change means swap-related fees no longer flow into the Aave DAO treasury.
However, Marc Zeller of ACI pointed out that monetization revenue from the aave.com frontend was originally expected to accrue to the DAO, while CoWSwap solvers rely on external free flash loans, bypassing Aave’s infrastructure and further reducing DAO revenue. Aave Labs responded that Paraswap surplus was never a protocol-enforced entitlement; once the routing logic changed, that surplus naturally disappeared. They added that other frontends remain permissionless, allowing the DAO to freely build or fund its own interface, and that going forward there will be a clearer separation between protocol-governed economic models and independently funded product decisions.
